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“It  is  time  for  Congress  to  examine  and  decide  for  itself.  It  has  taken  things  on  trust 
long  enough.” — Daniel  Webster. 


Daniel  Webster 
on 

The  Draft 

Text  of  a  Speech  delivered  in  Congress 
December  9,  1814 

Reprinted  from  “The  Letters  of  Daniel  Webster,” 
edited  by  C.  H.  Van  Tyne 


Contrary  to  the  impression  given  by  the  majority  report 
from  the  Senate  Committee  on  Military  Affairs,  the  United 
States  did  not  enact  “drastic  draft  laws”  during  the  War 
of  1812. 

The  State  of  New  York  did  enact  such  a  measure  but  her 
move  was  generally  regarded  as  an  attempt  to  stampede 
Congress  into  the  passage  of  a  conscription  act. 

In  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  bill  was  strongly  urged  by 
the  President  and  the  Secretary  of  War,  it  was  defeated  on 
the  ground  that  it  was  unconstitutional.  This  argument  of 
Webster’s,  coming  from  the  ablest  constitutional  lawyer  in 
Congress,  contributed  materially  to  its  defeat. 


AMERICAN  UNION  AGAINST  MILITARISM 

Munsey  Building  Washington,  D.  C. 


“Where  is  it  written  in  the  Constitution  .  .  .  that  you  may  take  children  from  their 
parents  .  .  .  and  compel  them  to  fight  the  battles  of  any  war  which  the  folly  or  the  wicked¬ 
ness  of  government  may  engage  in?” — Daniel  Webster. 


AMERICAN 
UNION  AGAINST 
MILITARISM 


OFFICERS 

Lillian  D.  Wald,  Chairman 
Amos  Pinchot,  Vice-Chairman 
L.  Hollingsworth  Wood,  Treasurer 
Crystal  Eastman,  Executive  Secretary 
Charles  T.  Hallinan,  Editorial  Director 

EXECUTIVE  COMMITTEE 

Jane  Addams 

Emily  G.  Balch 

A.  A.  Berle 

Herbert  S.  Bigelow 

Sophonisba  P.  Breckinridge 

William  F.  Cochran 

Max  Eastman 

John  Lovejoy  Elliott 

Mrs.  Glendower  Evans 

Zona  Gale 

John  Haynes  Holmes 

David  Starr  Jordan 

Paul  U.  Kellogg 

Agnes  Leach 

Alice  Lewisohn 

Owen  R.  Lovejoy 

Frederick  Lynch 

John  A.  McSparran 

James  H.  Maurer 

Henry  R.  Mussey 

Norman  Thomas 

Oswald  Garrison  Villard 

James  P.  Warbasse 

Stephen  S.  Wise 

Headquarters 

MUNSEY  BLDG.,  WASHINGTON,  D.  C. 

Telephone  Main  4859 

Send  us  your  name  and  a  contribution 

April,  1917 


Speech  of  Daniel  Webster 

[The  House  had  under  consideration  a  bill  proposing  to  draft  men  for  service 
in  the  War  of  1812.] 

Mr.  Webster.  Mr.  Chairman:  After  the  best  reflection 
which  I  have  been  able  to  bestow  on  the  subject  of  the  bill  before 
you,  I  am  of  the  opinion  that  its  principles  are  not  warranted  by 
any  provision  of  the  constitution.  It  appears  to  me  to  partake 
of  the  nature  of  those  other  propositions  for  military  measures, 
which  this  session,  so  fertile  in  invention,  has  produced.  It  is 
of  the  same  class  with  the  plan  of  the  Secretary  of  War;  with 
the  bill  reported  to  this  House  by  its  own  committee,  for  filling 
the  ranks  of  the  Regular  Army  by  classifying  the  male  population 
of  the  United  States;  with  the  resolution  recently  introduced  by 
an  honorable  gentleman  from  Pennsylvania,  Mr.  Ingersoll,  and 
which  now  lies  on  your  table,  carrying  the  principle  of  compulsory 
service  in  the  Regular  Army  to  its  utmost  extent. 

I 

This  bill,  indeed,  is  less  undisguised  in  its  object,  and  less  direct 
in  its  means,  than  some  of  the  measures  proposed.  It  is  an  attempt 
to  exercise  the  power  of  forcing  the  free  men  of  this  country  into 
the  ranks  of  the  Army,  for  the  general  purposes  of  the  war,  under 
color  of  a  military  service.  To  this  end  it  commences  with  a 
classification,  which  is  no  way  connected  with  the  general  organiza¬ 
tion  of  the  Militia,  nor,  to  my  apprehension,  included  within  any 
of  the  powers  which  Congress  possesses  over  them.  All  the 
authority  which  this  government  has  over  the  Militia,  until 
actually  called  into  the  service,  is  to  enact  laws  for  their  organiza¬ 
tion  and  discipline.  This  power  it  has  exercised.  It  now  possesses 
the  further  power  of  calling  into  its  service  any  portion  of  the 
Militia  of  the  States,  in  the  particular  exigencies  for  which  the 
constitution  provides,  and  of  governing  them  during  the  con¬ 
tinuance  of  such  service.  Here  its  authority  ceases.  The 
classification  of  the  whole  body  of  the  Militia,  according  to  the 
provisions  of  this  bill,  is  not  a  measure  which  respects  either  their 
general  organization  or  their  discipline.  It  is  a  distinct  system 
introduced  for  new  purposes,  and  not  connected  with  any  power 
which  the  Constitution  has  conferred  on  Congress. 

But,  Sir,  there  is  another  consideration.  The  services  of  the 
men  to  be  raised  under  this  act  are  not  limited  to  those 


cases  in  which  alone  this  government  is  entitled  to  the 
aid  of  the  militia1  of  the  States.  These  cases  are  par¬ 
ticularly  stated  in  the  Constitution — 4  6 to  repel  invasion, 
suppress  insurrection,  or  execute  the  laws.”  But  this  bill 
has  no  limitation  in  this  respect.  The  usual  mode  of  legislating 
on  the  subject  is  abandoned.  The  only  section  which  would 
have  confined  the  services  of  the  Militia  proposed  to  be  raised, 
within  the  United  States,  has  been  stricken  out  and  if  the  President 
should  not  march  them  into  the  Provinces  of  England  at  the 
North,  or  of  Spain  at  the  South,  it  will  not  be  because  he  is  pro¬ 
hibited  by  any  provision  in  this  Act. 

This,  then,  Sir,  is  a  bill  for  calling  out  the  Militia  not  according 
to  its  existing  organization,  but  by  draft  from  new  created  classes 
— not  merely  for  the  purpose  of  repelling  invasion,  suppressing 
insurrection,  or  executing  the  laws,  but  for  the  general  objects  of 
war — for  defending  ourselves,  or  invading  others  as  may  be 
thought  expedient,  not  for  a  sudden  emergency,  or  for  a  short 
time,  but  for  long  stated  periods;  for  two  years,  if  the  proposition 
of  the  Senate  should  finally  prevail;  for  one  year  if  the  amendment 
of  the  House  should  be  adopted.  What  is  this  Sir,  but  raising  a 
standing  army  out  of  the  Militia  by  draft,  and  to  be  recruited  by 
draft,  in  like  manner,  as  often  as  occasions  require  ? 

This  bill,  then,  is  not  different  in  principle  from  the  other  bills, 
plans,  and  resolutions  which  I  have  mentioned.  The  present 
discussion  is  properly  and  necessarily  common  to  them  all.  It  is 
a  discussion,  Sir,  of  the  last  importance.  That  measures  of  this 
nature  should  be  debated  at  all,  in  the  councils  of  a  free 
government,  is  a  cause  of  dismay.  The  question  is  nothing 
less  than  whether  the  most  essential  rights  of  personal 
liberty  shall  be  surrendered,  and  despotism  embraced  in 
its  worst  form. 

II 

I  have  risen,  on  this  occasion,  with  anxious  and  painful  emo¬ 
tions,  to  add  my  admonitions  to  what  has  been  said  by  others. 
Admonition  and  remonstrance,  I  am  aware,  are  not  acceptable 
strains.  They  are  duties  of  unpleasant  performance.  But  they 
are,  in  my  judgment,  the  duties  which  the  condition  of  a  falling 
state  imposes.  They  are  duties  which  sink  deep  in  his  conscience, 
who  believes  it  probable  that  they  may  be  the  last  services  which 

1  “Militia”  as  used  in  the  Constitution  refers  to  the  entire  male  population 
of  the  several  States,  capable  of  bearing  arms — the  age  limits  varying  in 
different  States.  The  National  Guard,  strictly  speaking,  is  not  the  militia, 
but  simply  the  organized  militia. 


he  may  be  able  to  render  to  the  government  of  his  country.  On 
the  issue  of  this  discussion,  I  believe  the  fate  of  this  government 
may  rest.  Its  duration  is  incompatible,  in  my  opinion,  with  the 
existence  of  the  measures  in  contemplation.  A  crisis  has  at  last 
arrived,  to  which  the  course  of  things  has  long  tended,  and  which 
may  be  decisive  upon  the  happiness  of  present  and  future  genera¬ 
tions.  If  there  be  anything  important  in  the  concerns  of  men,  the 
considerations  which  fill  the  present  hour  are  important.  I  am 
anxious  above  all  things,  to  stand  acquitted  before  God,  and  my 
conscience,  and  in  the  public  judgments,  of  all  participation  in 
the  Counsels,  which  have  brought  us  to  our  present  condition  and 
which  now  threaten  the  dissolution  of  the  government.  When  the 
present  generation  of  men  shall  be  swept  away  and  that  this 
government  ever  existed  shall  be  a  matter  of  history  only,  I  desire 
that  it  may  then  be  known  that  you  have  not  proceeded  in  your 
course  unadmonished  and  unforewarned.  Let  it  then  be  known 
that  there  were  those,  who  would  have  stopped  you,  in  the  career 
of  your  measures,  and  held  you  back,  as  by  the  skirts  of  your 
garments,  from  the  precipice,  over  which  you  are  plunging,  and 
drawing  after  the  government  of  your  Country.  .  .  . 

It  is  time  for  Congress  to  examine  and  decide  for  itself. 
It  has  taken  things  on  trust  long  enough.  It  has  followed 
executive  recommendation  till  there  remains  no  hope  of  finding 
safety  in  that  path.  What  is  there,  Sir,  that  makes  it  the  duty 
of  this  people  now  to  grant  new  confidence  to  the  administration, 
and  to  surrender  their  most  important  rights  to  its  discretion? 
On  what  merits  of  its  own  does  it  rest  this  extraordinary  claim  ?  .  .  . 

Let  us  examine  the  nature  and  extent  of  the  power  which  is 
assumed  by  the  various  military  measures  before  us.  In  the 
present  want  of  men  and  money,  the  Secretary  of  War  has  pro¬ 
posed  to  Congress  a  Military  Conscription.  For  the  conquest  of 
Canada  the  people  will  not  enlist,  and  if  they  would  the  treasury 
is  exhausted  and  they  could  not  be  paid.  Conscription  is  chosen 
as  the  most  promising  instrument,  both  of  overcoming  the  reluct¬ 
ance  to  the  Service,  and  of  subduing  the  difficulties  which  arise 
from  the  deficiencies  of  the  exchequer.  The  administration  asserts 
the  right  to  fill  the  ranks  of  the  Regular  Army  by  compulsion.  It 
contends  that  it  may  now  take  one  out  of  every  twenty-five  men, 
and  any  part  or  whole  of  the  rest,  whenever  its  occasions  require. 
Persons  thus  taken  by  force  and  put  into  an  army  may  be  compelled 
to  serve  there,  during  the  war,  or  for  life.  They  may  be  put  on 
any  service,  at  home  or  abroad,  for  defense  or  for  invasion,  accord¬ 
ing  to  the  will  and  pleasure  of  the  government.  This  power 


does  not  grow  out  of  any  invasion  of  the  country,  or  even  out  of 
a  state  of  war.  It  belongs  to  government  at  all  times,  in  peace 
as  well  as  war,  and  is  to  be  exercised  under  all  circumstances 
according  to  its  mere  discretion.  This,  Sir,  is  the  amount  of 
principle  contended  for  by  the  Secretary  of  War. 

Is  this,  Sir,  consistent  with  the  character  of  a  free  government  ? 
Is  this  civil  liberty  ?  Is  this  the  real  character  of  our  constitution  ? 
No,  Sir,  indeed  it  is  not.  The  Constitution  is  libelled,  foully 
libelled.  The  people  of  this  country  have  not  established  for 
themselves  such  a  fabric  of  despotism.  They  have  not  pur¬ 
chased  at  a  vast  expense  of  their  own  treasures  and  their  own 
blood  a  Magna  Charta  to  be  slaves.  Where  is  it  written  in  the 
Constitution,  in  what  article  or  section  is  it  contained  that  you 
may  take  children  from  their  parents  and  parents  from  their 
children  and  compel  them  to  fight  the  battles  of  any  war  which 
the  folly  or  the  wickedness  of  government  may  engage  in  ?  Under 
what  concealment  has  this  power  lain  hidden  which  now  for  the 
first  time  comes  forth,  with  a  tremendous  and  baleful  aspect, 
to  trample  down  and  destroy  the  dearest  rights  of  personal  liberty  ? 
Who  will  show  me  any  constitutional  injunction  which  makes  it 
the  duty  of  the  American  people  to  surrender  everything  valuable 
in  life,  and  even  life  itself,  not  when  the  safety  of  their  country  and 
its  liberties  may  demand  the  sacrifice,  but  whenever  the  purposes 
of  an  ambitious  and  mischievous  government  may  require  it? 
Sir,  I  almost  disdain  to  go  to  quotations  and  references  to  prove 
that  such  an  adominable  doctrine  has  no  foundation  in  the 
Constitution  of  the  country.  It  is  enough  to  know  that  that 
instrument  was  intended  as  the  basis  of  a  free  government  and 
that  the  power  contended  for  is  incompatible  with  any  notion  of 
personal  liberty.  An  attempt  to  maintain  this  doctrine  upon  the 
provisions  of  the  Constitution  is  an  exercise  of  perverse  ingenuity 
to  extract  slavery  from  the  substance  of  a  free  government. 
It  is  an  attempt  to  show,  by  proof  and  argument,  that  we  ourselves 
are  subjects  of  despotism  and  that  we  have  a  right  to  chains  and 
bondage,  firmly  secured  to  us  and  our  children  by  the  provisions 
of  our  government.  It  has  been  the  labor  of  other  men  at  other 
times,  to  mitigate  and  reform  the  powers  of  government  by  con¬ 
struction;  to  support  the  rights  of  personal  security  by  every 
species  of  favorable  and  benign  interpretation,  and  thus  to  infuse 
a  free  spirit  into  governments  not  friendly  in  their  general  struc¬ 
ture  and  formation  to  public  liberty. 

The  supporters  of  the  measures  before  us  act  on  the  opposite 
principle.  It  is  their  task  to  raise  arbitrary  powers,  by  construe- 


tion,  out  of  a  plain  written  charter  of  National  Liberty.  It  is 
their  pleasing  duty  to  free  us  of  the  delusion,  which  we 
have  fondly  cherished,  that  we  are  the  subjects  of  a  mild, 
free,  and  limited  government,  and  to  demonstrate  by  a 
regular  chain  of  premises  and  conclusions,  that  govern¬ 
ment  possesses  over  us  a  power  more  tyrannical,  more 
arbitrary,  more  dangerous,  more  allied  to  blood  and  murder, 
more  full  of  every  form  of  mischief,  more  productive  of 
every  sort  of  misery,  than  has  been  exercised  by  any  civilized 
government,  with  one  exception,  in  modern  times. 

Ill 

The  Secretary  of  War  has  favored  us  with  an  argument  on  the 
constitutionality  of  this  power.  Those  who  lament  that  such 
doctrines  should  be  supported  by  the  opinion  of  a  high  officer  of 
government,  may  a  little  abate  their  regret,  when  they  remember 
that  the  same  officer,  in  his  last  letter  of  instructions  to  our 
ministers  abroad,  maintained  the  contrary.  In  that  letter  he 
declares  that  even  the  impressment  of  seamen,  for  which 
many  more  plausible  reasons  may  be  given  than  for  the 
impressment  of  soldiers,  is  repugnant  to  our  constitution. 

It  might,  therefore,  be  sufficient  answer  to  his  argument,  in 
the  present  case,  to  quote  against  it  the  sentiments  of  its  own 
author,  and  to  place  the  two  opinions  before  the  House,  in  a  state 
of  irreconcilable  conflict.  Further  comment  on  either  might 
then  be  properly  forborne,  until  he  should  be  pleased  to  inform 
us  which  he  retracted  and  to  which  he  adhered.  But  the  im¬ 
portance  of  the  subject  may  justify  a  further  consideration  of  the 
argument. 

Congress  having,  by  the  Constitution,  a  power  to  raise  armies, 
the  Secretary  contends  that  no  restraint  is  to  be  imposed  on  the 
exercise  of  this  power,  except  such  as  is  expressly  stated  in  the 
written  letter  of  the  instrument.  In  other  words,  that  Congress 
may  execute  its  powers  by  any  means  it  chooses,  unless  such  means 
are  particularly  prohibited.  But  the  general  nature  and  object 
of  the  Constitution  impose  as  rigid  restriction  on  the  means  of 
exercising  power  as  could  be  done  by  the  most  explicit  injunctions. 
It  is  the  first  principle  applicable  to  such  a  case  that  no  construc¬ 
tion  shall  be  admitted  which  impairs  the  general  nature  and  char¬ 
acter  of  the  instrument.  A  free  Constitution  of  government 
is  to  be  construed  upon  free  principles,  and  every  branch  of  its 
provisions  is  to  receive  such  an  interpretation  as  is  full  of  its 
general  spirit.  No  means  are  to  be  taken  by  implication,  which 


would  strike  us  absurdly  if  expressed.  And  what  would  have 
been  more  absurd,  than  for  this  constitution  to  have  said, 
that  to  secure  the  great  blessings  of  liberty  it  gave  to  govern¬ 
ment  an  uncontrolled  power  of  military  conscription? 
Yet  such  is  the  absurdity  which  it  is  made  to  exhibit  under  the 
commentary  of  the  Secretary  of  War. 

IV 

But  it  is  said  that  it  might  happen  that  an  army  would  not  be 
raised  by  voluntary  enlistment,  in  which  case  the  power  to  raise 
an  army  would  be  granted  in  vain,  unless  they  might  be  raised  by 
compulsion.  If  this  reasoning  could  prove  anything  it  would 
equally  show  that  whenever  the  legitimate  powers  of  the  Consti¬ 
tution  should  be  so  badly  administered  as  to  cease  to  answer  the 
great  ends  intended  by  them,  such  new  powers  may  be  assumed 
or  usurped,  as  any  existing  administration  may  deem  expedient. 
This  is  a  result  of  his  own  reasoning  to  which  the  Secretary  does 
not  profess  to  go.  But  it  is  a  true  result.  For  if  it  is  to  be  assumed 
that  all  powers  were  granted,  which  might  by  possibility  become 
necessary,  and  that  government  itself  is  the  judge  of  this  possible 
necessity,  then  the  powers  of  the  government  are  precisely  what 
it  chooses  they  should  be.  Apply  the  same  reasoning  to  any  other 
power  granted  to  Congress  and  test  its  accuracy  by  its  result. 
Congress  has  power  to  borrow  money.  How  is  it  to  exercise  this 
power?  Is  it  confined  to  voluntary  loans?  There  is  no  express 
limitation  to  that  effect,  and  in  the  language  of  the  Secretary  it 
might  happen,  indeed,  it  has  happened,  that  persons  could  not 
be  found  willing  to  lend.  Money  might  be  borrowed  then  in 
any  other  mode.  In  other  words,  Congress  might  resort  to  a 
forced  loan.  It  might  take  the  money  of  any  man  by  force  and 
give  in  exchange  Exchequer  notes  or  Certificates  of  Stock.  Would 
this  be  quite  constitutional,  Sir  ?  It  is  entirely  within  the  reason¬ 
ing  of  the  Secretary,  and  it  is  the  result  of  his  argument,  outraging 
the  rights  of  individuals  in  a  far  less  degree  than  the  practical 
consequences  which  he  himself  draws  from  it.  A  compulsory 
loan  is  not  to  be  compared,  in  point  of  enormity,  with  a 
compulsory  military  service. 

If  the  Secretary  of  War  has  proved  the  right  of  Congress  to 
enact  a  law  enforcing  a  draft  of  men  out  of  the  Militia  into  the 
Regular  Army,  he  will  at  any  time  be  able  to  prove  quite  as 
clearly  that  Congress  has  power  to  create  a  Dictator.  The  argu¬ 
ments  which  have  helped  him  in  one  case  will  equally  help  him 
in  the  other.  The  same  reason  of  a  supposed  or  possible  state 


necessity  which  is  urged  now,  may  be  repeated  then  with  equal 
pertinency  and  effect. 

Sir,  in  granting  Congress  the  power  to  raise  armies,  the  People 
have  granted  all  the  means  which  are  ordinary  and  usual,  and  which 
are  consistent  with  the  liberties  and  security  of  the  People  them¬ 
selves  and  they  have  granted  no  others.  To  talk  about  the 
unlimited  power  of  the  government  over  the  means  to  execute 
its  authority  is  to  hold  a  language  which  is  true  only  in  regard  to 
despotisms.  The  tyranny  of  Arbitrary  Government  consists  as 
much  in  its  means  as  in  its  ends,  and  it  would  be  a  ridiculous  and 
absurd  constitution  which  should  be  less  cautious  to  grant  against 
abuses  in  the  one  case  than  in  the  other.  All  the  means  and 
instruments  which  a  free  government  exercises,  as  well  as  the 
ends  and  objects  it  pursues,  are  to  partake  of  its  own  essential 
character,  and  to  be  conformed  to  its  genuine  spirit.  A  free 
government  with  arbitrary  means  to  administer  it  is  a 
contradiction,  a  free  government  without  adequate  pro¬ 
visions  for  personal  security  is  an  absurdity,  a  free  govern¬ 
ment  with  an  uncontrolled  power  of  military  conscription 
is  a  solecism,  at  once  the  most  ridiculous  and  abominable 
that  ever  entered  into  the  head  of  man. 

V 

Sir,  I  invite  the  supporters  of  the  measures  before  you  to  look 
to  their  actual  operations.  Let  the  men  who  have  so  often 
pledged  their  own  fortunes  and  their  own  lives  to  the  support  of 
this  war,  look  to  the  wanton  sacrifice  which  they  are  about  to 
make  of  their  lives  and  fortunes.  They  may  talk  as  they  will 
about  substitutes  and  compensation,  and  exemptions.  It  must 
come  to  the  draft  at  last.  If  the  Government  cannot  hire  men  to 
voluntarily  fight  its  battles  neither  can  individuals.  If  the  war 
should  continue,  there  will  be  no  escape,  and  every  man's  fate 
and  every  man’s  life  will  come  to  depend  on  the  issue  of  the 
military  draft.  Who  shall  describe  to  you  the  horror  which 
your  orders  of  Conscription  shall  create  in  the  once  happy  villages 
of  this  country?  Who  shall  describe  the  anguish  and  distress 
which  they  will  spread  over  those  hills  and  valleys,  where  men 
have,  heretofore,  been  accustomed  to  labor  and  to  rest  in  security 
and  happiness.  Anticipate  the  scene.  Sir,  when  the  class 
shall  assemble  to  stand  its  draft  and  to  throw  the  dice  for 
blood.  What  a  group  of  wives  and  mothers  and  sisters,  of 
helpless  age  and  helpless  infancy,  shall  gather  round  the  theatre 
of  this  horrible  lottery,  as  if  the  strokes  of  death  were  to  fall  from 


heaven  before  their  eyes,  on  a  father,  a  brother,  a  son,  or  a  husband. 
And  in  the  majority  of  cases,  Sir,  it  will  be  the  stroke  of  death. 
Under  present  prospects  of  a  continuance  of  the  war,  not  one  half 
of  them  on  whom  your  conscription  shall  fall,  will  ever  return  to 
tell  the  tale  of  their  sufferings.  They  will  perish  of  disease  and 
pestilence,  or  they  will  leave  their  bones  to  whiten  in  fields  beyond 
the  frontier.  Does  the  lot  fall  on  the  father  of  a  family?  His 
children,  already  orphans,  shall  see  his  face  no  more.  When  they 
behold  him  for  the  last  time  they  shall  see  him  lashed  and  fettered, 
and  dragged  away  from  his  own  threshold,  like  a  felon  and  an 
outlaw.  Does  it  fall  on  a  son,  the  hope  and  staff  of  aged  parents  ? 
That  hope  shall  fail  them.  On  that  staff  they  shall  lean  no  longer. 
They  shall  not  enjoy  the  happiness  of  dying  before  their  children. 
They  shall  totter  to  their  graves,  bereft  of  their  offspring,  and 
unwept  by  any  who  inherit  their  blood.  Does  it  fall  on  a  husband  ? 
The  eyes  which  watch  his  parting  steps  may  swim  in  tears  forever. 
She  is  a  wife  no  longer.  There  is  no  relation  so  tender  or  so  sacred, 
that,  by  these  accursed  measures,  you  do  not  propose  to  violate 
it.  Into  the  paradise  of  domestic  life  you  enter,  not  indeed  by 
temptations  and  sorceries,  but  by  open  force  and  violence.  *  *  * 

Nor  is  it,  Sir,  for  the  defense  of  his  own  house  and  home 
that  he  who  is  subject  to  military  draft  is  to  perform  the 
task  allotted  to  him.  *  *  * 

VI 

I  would  ask,  Sir,  whether  the  supporters  of  these  measures  have 
well  weighed  the  difficulties  of  their  undertaking.  Have  they 
considered  whether  it  will  be  found  easy  to  execute  laws  which 
bear  such  marks  of  despotism  on  their  front,  and  which  will  be 
so  productive  of  every  sort  and  degree  of  misery  in  their  execution. 
For  one,  Sir,  I  hesitate  not  to  say  that  they  cannot  be  executed. 
No  law  professedly  passed  for  the  purpose  of  compelling  a  service 
in  the  Regular  Army,  not  any  law,  which  under  color  of  military 
draft  shall  compel  men  to  serve  in  the  Army,  not  for  the  emergen¬ 
cies  mentioned  in  the  constitution,  but  for  long  periods  and  for  the 
general  objects  of  war,  can  be  carried  into  effect.  The  operation 
of  measures  thus  unconstitutional  and  illegal  ought  to  be  prevented 
by  a  resort  to  other  measures  which  are  both  constitutional  and 
legal.  It  will  be  the  solemn  duty  of  the  State  Governments 
to  protect  their  own  authority  over  their  own  Militia, 
and  to  interpose  between  their  citizens  and  arbitrary 
power.  These  are  among  the  objects  for  which  the 
State  Governments  exist,  and  their  highest  obligations 


bind]  them  to  the  preservation  of  their  own  rights 
and  the  liberties  of  their  people.  I  express  the  senti¬ 
ments  here,  Sir,  because  I  shall  express  them  to  my  con¬ 
stituent.  Both  they  and  myself  live  under  a  constitution 
which  teaches  us  that  “the  doctrine  of  non-resistance  against 
arbitrary  power  and  oppression  is  absurd,  slavish,  and  destructive 
of  the  good  and  happiness  of  mankind.”2  With  the  same  earnest¬ 
ness  with  which  I  now  exhort  you  to  forbear  from  these  measures, 
I  shall  exhort  them  to  exercise  their  unquestionable  right  of  pro¬ 
viding  for  the  security  of  their  liberties. 

In  my  opinion,  Sir,  the  sentiments  of  the  free  population  of  this 
country  are  greatly  mistaken  here.  The  nation  is  not  yet  in  a 
temper  to  submit  to  conscription.  The  people  have  too  fresh 
and  strong  a  feeling  of  the  blessings  of  civil  liberty  to  be  willing 
thus  to  surrender  it.  You  may  talk  to  them  as  much  as  you 
please  of  the  victory  and  glory  to  be  obtained  in  the  enemy’s 
provinces,  they  will  hold  those  objects  in  light  estimation,  if  the 
means  be  a  forced  military  service.  You  may  sing  to  them  the 
song  of  Canada  conquests  in  all  its  variety,  but  they  will  not  be 
charmed  out  of  the  remembrance  of  their  substantial  interests 
and  true  happiness.  Similar  pretenses,  they  know,  are  the 
graves  in  which  the  liberties  of  other  nations  have  been  buried 
and  they  will  take  warning. 

Laws,  Sir,  of  this  nature  can  create  nothing  but  opposition.  If 
you  scatter  them  abroad  like  the  fabled  serpents  teeth,  they  will 
spring  up  into  armed  men.  A  military  force  cannot  be  raised, 
in  this  manner,  but  by  the  means  of  a  military  force.  If  the 
administration  has  found  that  it  cannot  form  an  army 
without  conscription,  it  will  find,  if  it  venture  on  these 
experiments,  that  it  cannot  enforce  conscription  without 
an  army.  The  Government  was  not  constituted  for  such 
purposes.  Framed  in  the  spirit  of  liberty  and  in  the  love  of  peace, 
it  has  no  powers  which  render  it  able  to  enforce  such  laws.  The 
attempt,  if  we  rashly  make  it,  will  fail  and  having  already  thrown 
away  our  peace,  we  may  thereby  throw  away  our  government. 


2  New  Hampshire  Bill  of  Rights. 


t 


